Thank God he had realized what was happening in time. He’d smiled, pulled back into himself, and asked Jeffrey to go get a bottle of wine. When he was gone, he’d turned to Ed Cochran.

“I will meet with you after hours at my offices. I do not discuss business at home. And Jeffrey, though welcome to his opinions, does not help me make policy. Is that very clear?”

Cochran had nodded. “I appreciate it.”

“There will most probably be nothing to appreciate.”

Cochran gave him a warm smile. “Well, at least I’ll have tried.”

“Yes, you’ll have done that.”

And, before Jeffrey had come back, they’d agreed on Monday night at nine-thirty. Just the two of them. To talk.

THE MORE Alphonse thought about it, the more it didn’t hold up. He sat having early ribs and greens at Maxie’s on Buchanan, trying to figure how to keep himself alive until this deal went down.

James, his man, was losing faith in him. This being his-Alphonse’s-first pass at middleman, his credibility was low. It had taken all of his jive to persuade James to keep the buy happening. And even at that, he wasn’t certain any longer that it would come off.

If he couldn’t get the deal closed right now, it would be over. Everybody else would just walk from it. It would maybe take him some time, but Polk would find other buyers, and James would just write him off as a loser and go on to a better source, if he didn’t just off him. Meanwhile, Alphonse got no bread for all the hassle and wound up where he’d always been, on the goddamn street, unconnected and going nowhere fast.

He thought about it. The smart bloods made things happen themselves, didn’t wait around while everybody else figured how they were going to get their piece. And the more he thought, the more it felt all wrong.

I mean, Cochran for instance.

Nicest guy in the world, no two ways about it. But why had he been at the delivery spot? Straight Eddie must have been part of this thing. And that meant Polk was somehow trying to cross him.

He chewed on some gristle, trying to figure out these money guys. Outside, it drizzled through light fog, still as death. A dog peed on the building across the street, sniffed at one of the paper bags in the curb.

Everybody had gotten nervous when the money hit the table. That was the problem. Until last week, everybody’d been very cool, just putting together some times when the transfer could get made. And down at Army, with most of the crew laid off, with Cochran out trying to drum up new business and Sam gone half the time, there hadn’t been any work, so he and Linda had just hung out around the office getting high.

But then suddenly it wasn’t just talk, and everybody seemed to want to move very fast. And there had been nowhere to move to. Polk didn’t have the stuff. Sure, there was an excuse, about Eddie being killed there, but that smelled bad. That smelled really bad the more he thought.

Maxie was pouring some more chicory coffee into the cracked white mug. She was a good mama, black and fat as they come, but just hanging back, cooking her ribs, keeping cool.

“Hey, Maxie,” Alphonse said, “I ask you a question? I need a second opinion.”

Maxie stopped pouring, looked down at him. “Yep, you ugly.” She laughed and laughed. Alphonse smiled himself, waiting ’til she stopped. “Okay, honey, what?”

But suddenly, before he could even ask her, he saw it. It was so obvious he couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it. He put his full mug down hard, spilling it out over his hand.

“Watch out, child, what you doin’?”

He smiled up at Maxie. “Thank you, Mama.”

He had to get away from it a little, maybe just far enough to laugh for a minute-to see it all clearly. Everybody was playing the same game. James had protection for his money-major-league protection-and still he was nervous. And Polk had the same case of nerves, which meant he had the same basic situation -his money was sitting waiting to move. It was on the table, out, but in Polk’s case it probably wasn’t protected. The question was, where was the table?

Alphonse was surprising himself, and liking it. The thing with Linda on Friday had started it, when he’d been so uptight about James that he just couldn’t deal with any excuses about how her dad was having a tough time and couldn’t Alphonse wait ’til Monday for his check. He couldn’t have cared less about the goddamn check-what he wanted was to talk to fucking Sam Polk, who was stringing him out.

So he’d slapped Linda. Hard. The first time he’d slapped anybody. He didn’t think much of guys who slapped their women around before. And of course, Linda wasn’t his woman. But slapping her had gotten her attention.

Of course, she had known where her dad was. She just hadn’t wanted to tell Alphonse. But then, suddenly, they were allies of a kind. It was as though she looked at him now not as a jive-ass employee of her father, younger than she was, but a man worthy of respect-somebody who could get things done.

It was a good lesson.

He got off the bus and transferred to the cable car near Union Square. It took him up by the Fairmont and back down toward the Wharf. He jumped off without paying. The tourists, oohing and aahing, freezing their asses off, they paid.

He’d never been to Linda’s apartment before. Standing in the gusty alcove, he had a moment of doubt before he rang the bell. What if she wasn’t home, wouldn’t let him in, wasn’t alone? Maybe he should have called to make sure.

But then he remembered the slap, the power he was starting to tap into. He was on a roll. He had to go with the feeling. And Linda might know where her father was keeping the money. She might not even know that she knew. But Alphonse now had no doubts that he could convince her to talk, and if something was worth finding out, it would come out. He could make it happen whenever he wanted now that he knew how to go about it.

Damn. She should have fixed herself up. You just never knew what was going to happen.

Now here it is before noon on a Sunday and somebody’s at the door, and if it’s Daddy he’s going to see me in my robe and hair still uncombed and the place a mess and he’s going to think I’m a slob. When really I’m just alone and it’s hard to do all these things for yourself with nobody to care about it.

Pushing the voice button: “Who is it?” Pressing the door buzzer at the same time.

“Hey, it’s Alphonse.”

She had to stop doing that, letting people in before she knew who it was. But then, he was probably inside the door downstairs and there wasn’t anything she could do about it now. Besides, thinking about it, what a nice thing. She’d thought about Alphonse a couple of times this weekend, just spaced out watching the tube yesterday.

Sure, he was, like, pretty young and black and all that, but he did have kind of a cute face and a nice hard body, and it was a neat rush just to fantasize.

And driving home from Daddy’s, with Alphonse sitting so quiet next to her, she really had gotten the feeling that he was nervous, like he was thinking about them being together in the car at night. He hadn’t done anything, though. It was like other things were on his mind.

Over Saturday, maybe he’d been fantasizing a little, too. Maybe he really liked her a little. She’d studied him on Friday, after he’d hit her-it wasn’t any big thing, she knew. Guys just got riled up sometimes and had to make a point-Daddy would still do it, cuff her from time to time. But with Alphonse, it had kind of made her look at him different. Like he was showing her this private part of him, opening up. Flattering, in a way.

She was four floors up and it wouldn’t take him long, so she ran into her bedroom, dropped her robe on the floor and pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. No time for underwear. Then a quick brush through the hair-barefoot was okay. In the bathroom the water was cold but felt good on her face. No makeup, but at least she’d be clean. A last look. Not bad.